They saw that the mice experienced no ill effects, and that tumor growth was significantly slowed. Prof. Ryan is excited about the results. ‘In our study, we found a dosage of mannose that could block enough glucose to slow tumor growth in mice, but not so much that normal tissues were affected.’

Next, the team wanted to investigate whether mannose supplementation might impact how cancer treatment worked. The researchers carried out a similar experiment to the first, but in this case, they also treated the mice with two commonchemotherapy agents: cisplatin and doxorubicin.

Again, mannose made a positive difference when compared with mice that took chemotherapy drugs but no mannose: it enhanced the impact of chemotherapy, reduced tumor size, and increased lifespan.

There were some caveats to this study. Caveats that were strong enough that the researchers said more animal studies would be needed before they could recommend it as an intervention in cancer treatment.

In the lab, they added mannose directly to several different kinds of cancer cells (leukemia, ovarian cancer, and bowel cancer) to see what would happen to them,

In some cases, the cancer cells would halt growth, in other instance no effect was observed.

The one thing they concluded based on their observations was when cancer cells had had lower levels of phosphomannose isomerase in them there was a possible future growth may have been affected.

This is early research, but it is hoped that finding this perfect balance means that, in the future, mannose could be given to cancer patients to enhance chemotherapy without damaging their overall health.”